Bellmore-Merrick Central School District offers details of $47.6M bond

Posted
Friday, September 13, 2013 11:06 am

Fred Seeba, an engineer with BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers, gave a presentation on Wednesday before the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District Board of Education, offering details about a $47.6 million bond proposal that would, if passed, fund upgrades at each of the district’s five schools, as well as the Brookside Central Administration Office and the Jerusalem Avenue School, which is rented to the Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

Scott Brinton/Herald Life

By Scott Brinton

The fine details of a $47.6 million bond proposal to upgrade the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District’s seven buildings emerged at a Sept. 11 meeting of the Board of Education, including what work would be performed at which schools and a date for a possible vote.

Central District officials said they are looking at Dec. 2 as the likely date for a public vote on the bond, which, if passed, would fund new science laboratories, bathrooms and synthetic-turf fields at Grand Avenue and Merrick Avenue middle schools, and Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools.

Architect Joseph Rettig and engineer Fred Seeba, of the district’s Patchogue-based design firm, BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers, laid out renovation plans at each of the five schools, as well as the Brookside Central Administration Office in North Merrick and the Jerusalem Avenue School in North Bellmore, which the district rents to the Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

BBS’s proposal includes $7.5 million for new artificial-turf athletic fields, $6 million for new bathrooms and $5 million for new science laboratories at each of the district’s five schools, as well as renovated music, art, faculty and guidance rooms, refinished gymnasium floors, kitchen ceiling and lighting replacement, removal of vinyl asbestos tiles, masonry work and new doors where needed. In addition, the plan calls for:

At Grand Avenue Middle School

• New science room cabinetry.

At Merrick Avenue Middle School

• New science room cabinetry.

At Calhoun High School

• New auditorium stage side curtains because the current ones are ripped.

• Renovation of the Calhoun Café and resource room B166.

• Ceiling replacement where needed throughout the school.

At Kennedy High School

• Renovation of the family and consumer science and group instruction rooms.

• Renovation of the main lobby.

• Ceiling replacement where needed throughout the school.

At Mepham High School

• Removal of a locker room and shower to create storage space for athletic equipment.

• A new photo lab and art room.

• New auditorium sound and lighting equipment.

The list of work is still subject to change, said Superintendent John DeTommaso. Work would primarily be done during summers over three to four years. The following is a per-school cost breakdown for the work: Kennedy, $12 million; Mepham, $12 million; Calhoun, $10 million; Grand Avenue, $9.8 million; Merrick Avenue, $7.2 million; Brookside, $7.1 million; Jerusalem Avenue, $100,000.

If the proposal goes to a vote and residents approve it, 53.9 percent of the total cost would be funded through New York state building aid. Local taxpayers would fund the remaining cost.

Cynthia Regal, the district’s deputy superintendent for business, had said at a previous meeting that the average homeowner could expect to pay $98 more per year in property taxes if the bond were to pass, or $1,410 over the bond’s 15-year life.

On Sept. 11, Regal said she decided to estimate the possible tax impact more conservatively because the interest rate on bonds has risen in recent months, which would add to the annual property-tax bill. Now Regal estimates that the bond would increase the average bill by $101 per year, or $1,515 over 15 years.

Board of Education Trustee Susan Schwartz asked Rettig and Seeba how much it would cost to install air-conditioning in each of the district’s auditoriums. Schwartz said that temperatures are only expected to increase with climate change, and having air-conditioning would make attending performances at the auditoriums more comfortable for residents.

“That’s definitely something we want to consider,” Schwartz said of auditorium air-conditioning.

Officials noted that the Rockville Centre School District is installing air-conditioning in classrooms throughout the district at a cost of nearly $2.4 million. The project is part of a major renovation that Rockville Centre is funding through a $45.9 million bond that passed in March.

Sid Tanenbaum, who lived in Woodmere and owned a metal-stamping shop in Far Rockaway, where he was known more for his charitable ways than his two-handed set shot, has been honored for the past 30 years with a basketball tournament that raises scholarship money for students in the Five Towns.